Analysts bullish on company's potential for growth

Altisource Residential Corporation recently disclosed its second quarter financial results, reporting that it took a net loss of $63.5 million during the second quarter, but despite that loss, analysts from Nomura are bullish on the company’s future prospects.

In a note sent to clients on Tuesday, Nomura upgraded Altisource Residential from a “neutral” to a “buy” and changed its target price from $11 to $15.

The reason? Altisource’s growing single-family rental business.

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Altisource disclosed in its second-quarter financial results that it increased its single-family rental portfolio during the quarter by 13% over the prior quarter, increasing its portfolio to 3,977 homes.

Of those nearly 4,000 homes available for rent, 3,010 are currently rented, 273 are listed and ready for rent and 694 properties are under leasehold renovation and unit turn, Altisource said.

Last year, Altisource grew its rental portfolio from 984 homes as of June 30 to 2,516 homes, thanks to an acquisition of 1,314 rental homes in Atlanta from Invitation Homes for an aggregate purchase price of $111.4 million.

At the time, Altisource said it planned to grow its rental portfolio by much, much more in the future.

The company said, at the time, that it planned to grow its rental portfolio from 2,516 to more than 25,000, which would represent growth of more than 900%.

Altisource said earlier this month that its moving towards that goal by entering into a non-binding letter of intent to purchase between 4,000 and 4,500 single-family rental properties from an “unrelated third party,” with the deal being subject to “due diligence, negotiation of definitive transaction documents, financing arrangements and other factors.”

The company said that the deal is expected to close in the third or fourth quarter of 2016 and would use a “substantial portion” of the company’s cash on hand. But that won’t stop the company from also considering “other large single-family rental portfolio purchases available in the market.”

And that growth and growth potential has Nomura optimistic about Altisource’s future.

Investors seemed bullish on Altisource on Tuesday as well, as the company closed trading Monday at $10.34 per share and opened Tuesday’s trading at $11.06. As of 2:30 p.m. Eastern, the stock was still up for the day, trading at $11.04.

Ben Lane is the Editor for HousingWire. In this role, he helps set a leading pace for news coverage spanning the issues driving the U.S. housing economy and helps guide HousingWire's overall direction. Previously, he worked for TownSquareBuzz, a hyper-local news service. He is a graduate of University of North Texas.

Commentary

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